1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an automation device configured for use in an automation environment and for automating an industrial process, where the device comprises a first printed circuit board, a second printed circuit board, a first electronic component requiring to be cooled and a second electrical component requiring to be cooled, where the first electronic component requiring to be cooled is arranged on the first printed circuit board and the second electronic component requiring to be cooled is arranged on the second printed circuit board, and where a heatsink is arranged on the first printed circuit board and the first electronic component is arranged between the first printed circuit board and the heatsink, the heatsink is in this case cuboid shaped and rests on the first electronic component with a first cooling contact surface incorporated in a first lateral surface of the heatsink.
2. Description of the Related Art
The miniaturization of electronics components has resulted in the increasing realization of higher packing densities/functional densities of electronic components on a flat wiring module, such as a populated printed circuit board. This leads to an increase in the power dissipation loss, in particular in the case of microprocessors, because the performance of microprocessors is steadily increasing and consequently so also are the thermal losses.
Typically, one or more electronic components mounted on a printed circuit board are thermally coupled to a heatsink. When there are a plurality of printed circuit boards in an electronic device, it is also known to assign a separate heatsink to each of the plurality of printed circuit boards. An electronic device can therefore contain a plurality of heatsinks which cannot be fully utilized in total. The inevitable consequence is a lower power density than would be theoretically possible.
The computing power of an automation device leads to a power dissipation loss. The higher the computing power, the higher the power dissipation loss (heat). The processors used are becoming ever more powerful, so the power dissipation loss is increasing as a result. At the same time, it is a desire to shrink the external dimensions of the automation device more and more. This means that more and more heat must be dissipated from smaller and smaller housings.
Thus, the power density is ultimately power (dissipation loss) per unit of volume, such as watts per dm^3.
For these reasons, greater and greater technical efforts must be undertaken to stay within the permitted temperatures.